The Years Between
by salve veritate
Summary: What happened in the lives of Lily and James from the time they left Hogwarts to that fateful night?
1. Chapter 1

**_The Year Between_**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of J.K. Rowling's characters. However, if you see a name that you do not recognize, chances are, it's mine.

"Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry is please to present our class of 1978. Students, please give these young men and women a big round of applause for making it through seven years here." Professor Albus Dumbledore did as he requested of his students; he stepped down off of the podium that was in the front of the Great Hall and applauded the beaming older students.

It was the last day of the semester, and as tradition called for, the graduating students were having a feast thrown for them, complete with a party afterwards for only them, as the following day the train would take them home and into the real world, so the school thought that they needed a final day of pampering.

The younger students whistled and catcalled their older friends, applauding and cheering, all the while counting down the minutes until it was them standing up front, graduating from Hogwarts.

"And now," Dumbledore continued, "a few words from your Head Boy and Girl. Lily, if you will?"

More applause was heard in the hall as the young woman gave her headmaster a huge hug, tears threatening to spill out of her emerald eyes. "Hello," she said shakily as she stepped onto the podium. "The last seven years here have been, well, magic. For the first eleven years of my life, I thought that magic was something you only read about it books or something; never something real. Well, was I wrong. My time here had taught me many things. Through the help of my professors, I learned the magic, sure. But I also learned that nothing it outside of the realm of possibilities. I mean, if me, a simple, muggle born witch could do magic, well then, what's not possible? If we can wave our wands and make feathers float, if we can sure sicknesses with just a simple potion, if we can do all of this, who's to say that we can't do more? Who's to say we can't change the world? Sure, you may scoff, but guys, I'm serious. You all know how bad the world is turning. We're the latest adults in it, and we're going to be the ones who have to run it in the future. Shouldn't we be doing everything we can now to make sure that it's a good place? So, fellow classmates, I'm challenging you to change the world that you're about to set foot into. And, for Merlin's sake, smile. Congratulations, Hogwarts Class of '78. We did it!"

This time the applause came from the graduating class's section of the room, with the hooting and catcalling coming from a specific group of Gryffindor guys.

"Thank you, Ms. Evans," Dumbledore said proudly as Lily made her way back to her seat. "You never cease to amaze me. And now, Mr. Potter?"

But James was already halfway across the stage, giving the headmaster a nervous smile before clearing his throat to start.

"Rock!"  
"Paper!"  
"Scissors!"  
"SHOOT!"

Remus Lupin rolled his eyes at the male sitting next to him, and with a muttered choice word, slapping the hands that were playing. "Honestly, Padfoot, can't you keep quiet for two seconds?"

Sirius Black looked up from the game he was playing with himself to scowl at his conscious. "No," he scoffed with a huff. "Besides, Moony, I'm bored! How much longer is this going to take?"

"Padfoot," Remus said tiredly. "Shut up. This is our _graduation._ We're only going to get one of them, so you might as well pay attention. And why are you talking now? Prongs is about to talk!"

"I've heard Prongs talk more than I wanted to during the past seven years," Sirius shrugged. "I had hoped I would never listen to him blab on again, but apparently Dumbledore likes having people talk at these things."

Remus just rolled his eyes again and slapped the hands that Sirius was using to play with. "Listen to James," he ordered..

James was nervous. It was obvious in the way he kept wringing his hands, or putting one hand in his pocket to play with something in there, or the way he had to wipe sweat off of his brow. He stood on the podium, staring out at his class, for a good two minutes before the headmaster cleared his throat.

"Oh, right," James said, his cheeks turning red. "Sorry. Um…I am honoured to be this year's Head Boy. The past seven years have been fulfilling…" He kept reading off of a piece of paper he was holding, his voice flat and boring.

"Oh, bloody hell," he finally said, stopping his speech."Sorry," he quickly apologized as he noticed McGonagall glaring at him. "I hate ties," he confessed to the crowd, taking his off and balling it up in his pocket. "There. That's better. Now I can breathe…and about that speech," he continued, crumpling it up and stepping down from podium. "It was a piece of crap. It was boring and dull and put me to sleep faster then any of Binns' lectures ever were. Not that your lectures were boring," he quickly corrected himself, seeing both McGonagall and Binnsscowl at him. "I loved them. Good stuff, those lectures of yours…heh. I've spent the past seven years of my life here at Hogwarts," he said, staring his speech again, this time his way. "During those seven years, I went to class, learned magic, made friends, pulled pranks. And sometime during those seven years, I became ready for life outside of these walls. I don't know when. I think that was Dumbledore's plan, to have us ready for life without us knowing when. Don't ask me why. I've been trying to figure out that guy for my whole time here, and if I haven't been able to, there's no way I'll be able to on my last day here. The thing about life outside of Hogwarts, though? It'll be different from life here. We don't have things padded for us. We won't have teachers holding our hands. We'll be alone…unless we do something about it." He shoved his hand in his pocket again, and with a quick glace at Dumbledore, who nodded, James pulled out a small, velvet box from his pocket. "I don't want to be alone." He nodded at Remus, who stood up and took Lily's arm, leading her up to the stage, ignoring her demands that somebody tell her what was going on.

"Lily?" James said, going over to her and kneeling at her feet. "Lil, I love you. You know I do. I don't know when I started…probably about the time that I became ready for life. But I don't want to go out into that life if it doesn't include you. So, Lily Evans, will you marry me?"

A gasp went up in the Hall as everybody quickly stopped making noise and leaned forward in their chairs to hear what the answer was. The only sound was that of Sirius falling out of his chair and racing towards the couple, a huge grin on his face.

"James," Lily began with a small laugh, tears once again filling her eyes. "I…don't know what to say."

"Yes is always good," Sirius prompted her, and then cursed as Remus hit him upside the head.

"I…what do you think I am, an idiot?" Lily laughed, glancing quickly over at Sirius. "Of course I'll say yes. I'd be a fool not to. Yes, James, I'll marry you!" And with that, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, which made quite a commotion with the younger students watching.

James breathed a sigh of relief into Lily's hair, wrapping his arms around him and pulled her close to him, content to just hold her after the kiss was finished.

"Ooh, I'll have so much fun planning the bachelor party," Sirius cackled.

The whole room stopped its chatter when Dumbledore strode up to the stage, his purple robes swishing behind him. He took a moment or two to smile fondly upon the newly engaged couple before turning to the graduating class and smiling.

"Well," he beamed, taking off his pointed wizard's hat, "You did it!" With that, all the students threw their hats into the hair, so for a few minutes it was raining black pointed hats. "Class dismissed."

So, there you have it...The Prologue. I realize that it is really short, but that's what prologues are supposed to be. Don't worry, the rest of it won't be this short. Anyways...like it? Hate it? Let me know.


	2. Chapter 2

"James, Lily, nice speeches."

"Go away."

"Congratulations!"

"Shut up."

"James –"

"Not the time."

"James." Lily managed to free one arm from the death like grip her fiancé had on her, and brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, lying her head on his shoulder as she did so. "You've got to let me go at some point and socialize with other people."

James had both of his arms around her, holding her against him as she sat in his lap. The two of them were sitting in the corner of the Great Hall, watching the rest of their classmates enjoy the party, and, in James' case, glare at the few brave souls who dared interrupt him.

"Nope," he disagreed, tightening his hold on her and nuzzling her neck.

"James, good to see you finally got the girl!"

"GO AWAY."

That earned James a smack upside the head from Lily. "Be nice," she ordered. He just stuck his tongue out at her.

"Now, there's an attractive face, Mr. Potter."

"Go away. Please?"

"James. Don't be rude to the Headmaster," Lily scolded.

"Oh." James blushed, and reluctantly let Lily go so he could stand up and shake Dumbledore's hand. "Sorry about that, sir. People have been trying to talk to me all night, and just don't understand the fact that I don't want to be bothered."

Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled with amusement as he turned to Lily to wink. "Well, you were distracted by a pretty face, so no worries, Mr. Potter."

"She's more than just a pretty face!" James protested, and started to launch into a speech listing everything that he loved about her, but the elderly professor just held up a hand to stop the boy. "Er, right, then…Heh. Hey, Professor?"

"Hmm?"

"You wouldn't mind leaving now, would you?"

The Marauders had never been a quiet bunch, so it came to no surprise to any of them that after the party they spent hours just sitting around and being their normal selves. Being their normal selves, of course, required them to sneak out of the castle with the help of the Potter invisibility cloak, so at about 2 a.m. the four of them made their way down to the Whomping Willow for the last time.

"You know," Remus started as Peter went to deactivate the tree, "I never though I'd say this, but I'll miss this place. I don't know what I'm going to do now that we're out of school."

"Go to Prongs' house once a month," Sirius suggested, throwing an arm around his scruff haired friend. "We're not going to let you go through your thing alone, Moony. You should know us better than that. Every month for the rest of your life you're going to be stuck with us."

"Every month?" Remus paled, wincing at the thought of what being with his crazy friends for the rest of his life would do to his sanity. "Great."

James shrugged his shoulder, moving Sirius's arm from it, and glared. "If you think you're all going to be coming over to my place, you're crazy. First of all, I won't be there, since I suspect Lily and I will get our own place. Second of all, full moons are romantic – sorry, Moony, - and there is no way in hell I'm letting you all in my house during romantic nights."

Remus tried to hold back his laughter, which ended up with him snorting and choking, and Sirius just stared at James. "Prongs, buddy, don't get your hopes up. I've lived with you for seven years, right? Well, I've seen all of you there is to see, and, don't take this the wrong way, because I know that you think you're good, but, well, if you think that Lily will want to do…you know, that often, you must be - "

James didn't get to find out what he must be, because he had tackled Sirius and was now pummeling him, cursing every member of his family and wishing him to hell. Sirius just cackled evilly during it all.

"Why is Prongs beating up Padfoot?" Peter, now back to his human form, asked the sniggering Remus.

Remus just shook his head with amusement and lunged forward to grab James by the collar of his shirt, ignoring the kicking and cursing. "Come on," he ordered, pushing James towards the entrance to the tree. "You don't want to have Padfoot kill you on the night of your engagement, would you?"

"I was winning," James protested, but obediently followed Remus.

Once the four of them were in the Shrieking Shack and in their normal places in the room, with the food that Sirius had smuggled in, the four of them fell into an easy conversation that they all knew they were going to miss being able to do.

"What are you going to do about Iris?" James asked Sirius, referring to the girl that he had been dating for the past six months.

Sirius just shrugged, grabbing another piece of cake off the plate that was sitting between them. "I think it's safe to say that the two of us are over."

"Why?" Peter asked, looking at his friend with wide eyes. As Peter had never had a girlfriend before, he was at a loss as to why Sirius would give up a perfectly good one. "Is it because you're leaving school? You two can always owl each other, and you can go see her during Hogsm - "

"Wormtail. Shut up," Sirius ordered with a groan. "No, it's not because she has a year left in school. No, it's worse than that…I caught her snogging a Slytherin in hear year yesterday morning in a closet on the third floor…so, needless to say, my dating days are over." He added the last part with a huge dramatic sigh, flinging his arm over his head as he did so. "Well, that is until some woman catches my eye. Then I'll start the whole thing over, and try not to lose her to some Slytherin with pimples. But enough talk about me! (Did anybody else thing that they would never hear me say that? Heh. This is a first…) Let's talk about Prongs!"

Feeling awkward when all three of his friends' gazes turned upon him, James shuffled his feet with a forced chuckle. "What's there to talk about?" he asked lamely, hiding his left hand that he had previously been staring at, due to the small gold band on his ring finger, behind his back.

"Prongs!" It was Peter who spoke up first, his squeaky voice making James cringe, knowing that his friends would give him hell now. "I didn't know that you were going to do that! Why didn't you tell us?"

"Yeah, Prongs," Sirius nodded, glaring at James. "Why didn't you tell us? You told Moony over here, but not me, your deepest and closest friend? Why, James Potter, I'm disgusted at you. In fact, I do believe that I won't ever talk to you again." That said, Sirius turned his chair around to face the wall and sat back down, his arms crossed, a scowl on his otherwise gorgeous face.

"You mean all I had to do was ask Lily to marry me and you'd stop talking to me? Bloody hell, Padfoot, you should have told me that years ago. It would have saved me years of headaches." James smirked in Sirius' direction when he turned around to glare at James. "Just kidding. I didn't tell you because, well, Padfoot, you know yourself. If I had told you, then you would have ran off and told Lily the second you could, and that would have just ruined the whole thing. Am I right?"

Mad that he had to agree, Sirius reluctantly nodded his head, the scowl replaced with a sullen look.

"James," Peter started, ending the silence "you're engaged."

"I know," James nodded. "Isn't it crazy? I'm seventeen! I'm in love, and engaged to the most perfect woman God ever created."

"How is it that Prongs got a girl, and Padfoot ended up alone?" Remus wondered out loud, grunting when Sirius smacking him in the ribs. "I mean, no offence, James, but Padfoot is more…of a womanizer than you are."

"Can't disagree with you there," Sirius said happily, falling silent again so he could reflect back on girls he had taken to his bed.

James just shrugged. "Sure, Sirius has sex more, but hey, guess what, buddy? While you're going to be selling your body to those desperate women who just want somebody with a pretty face for a night, I'm going to be spending the nights with my loving, adoring, wife. So, ha."

Satsified that he won that argument, James smirked in his best friend's direction and leaning back, closed his eyes, imaging all the wonderful nights that he and Lily would soon be sharing. Needless to say, Sirius wasn't too happy that James had gotten in the last word, and showed his anger by playfully punching James in the gut, which led to another full out fight.

Lily, on the other hand, was taking part in another kind of fight – one involving pillows and giggling females.

"I can't believe this is the last night we're going to have together," Lily's best friend, Viola, said, hitting Lily with a pillow as she did so. "We've spent seven years together in this room, just the three of us…and next year, some smelly, stupid, first years are going to come and take over this room."

"I know," Reagan sighed, hitting Viola. "Viola, this sucks. The two of us are going to go from having two built in awesome roommates to nothing, while Ms. Lily here is going to be spending her nights with her husband. I hate you, Lily."

Lily laughed, hitting both of the girls back. "So you tell me every time you see me. Hey, I haven't had time to ask either of you yet, but did you know that James was planning on doing that?"

Viola and Reagan exchanged worried glances, and cast their eyes down in identical guilty expressions. Lily just stared at them before hitting them both with her pillow.

"You knew?" she screeched. "You knew and you didn't tell me?"

"We were sworn to secrecy!" Reagan explained, putting her hands up to try to stop the attack of the pillow. "James made us promise not to tell you. He didn't want to ruin the surprise. It was a good surprise though, right? You're so lucky, Lily," she continued, knowing that talking about Lily's fiancé would make her forget her anger towards her roommates and, hopefully, make her forget she had a pillow in her hand.

"Yeah," Viola put in, knowing how Reagan's mind was working. "That was really sweet, how he worked it into his speech and asked you in front of everybody. But now, we have one question for you, too."

Lily beamed at the two of them, her right hand playing with the ring on her other. "Yeah?"

"When's the wedding, and who's going to be your Maid of Honour?"

The next morning was filled with tears and hugs as the new graduates said goodbye to all of their younger classmen friends. The train would take younger students home first, with the graduates staying behind for a little while, to say goodbye to the castle and the professors without anybody else there. Then, after a few hours, they would meet in the Great Hall one last time to hear Dumbledore give one last speech, and then they would get on the train and go home for the last time.

For most of the graduates, this was a hard morning. They had all come to think of Hogwarts as their home, and the realization that they would never be coming back to it hit them all hard. They knew the castle as well – or, in certain cases, better, - than they knew their own homes. Their classmates were their family, and the professors were guiding mentors.

But come the next day, they wouldn't have any of that. They would be out in the world, as adults, and be expected to be able to handle it without anybody there to hold their hand and help them through it.

The professors had done all they could do to prepare them for that. They had taught them all that they could in seven years, and now, all they could do was hope that it was enough, knowing fully well that it probably wouldn't be.

A few years prior, the knowledge students gained in their seven years at Hogwarts would have been enough to prepare them. They would have known all they needed to know to get a job at the Ministry. But now, with the world being the way it was, all the professors knew that the students would need more than just their knowledge of magic to make it out there.

Some of the students would need only their support of Voldemort to make it. They would be branded by the Dark Lord, and do his bidding for the rest of their lives.

Others would go on pretending that nothing was wrong with the world, and live as though there wasn't. They would lead simple lives, doing nothing great with their lives, but surviving.

And still others – and these were the students that the faculty were most concerned about – would realize that there was something wrong with the world, and they would try to fix it. They would either get jobs to try to help the situation, or they would just go out and try to solve everything with just their fists and their wands.

Dumbledore knew who the last set of students would be. He had known it from the Sorting that had happened while this set of students had been young, scared and naïve children. He had tried to teach these students more, tried to help these students learn what was happening outside of the castle walls. But it wouldn't be enough. Nothing would ever be enough to prepare them for what was going to happen to the world.

He knew this. He knew that some of his beloved students would put their lives in danger because of what was happening in the world. He knew that some of them would die. For the great Headmaster, nothing hurt him more than knowing that some of his students, his children, would lose their lives, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

And, in fact, some of his children would lose their lives because of him. Because he taught them good and evil, and taught them that good would always prevail. Because of him, some of his students knew it to be their duty to make sure that good beat evil this time around. Dumbledore knew that he should feel sad about this, and he was, but more so than that, he felt proud. Proud of himself, for doing well in instilling a sense of goodness in them, but more proud of the students themselves, for being willing to sacrifice everything.

For the Marauders, leaving Hogwarts brought mixed feelings. Remus wasn't looking forward to being away from the one place where he had been accepted by people, despite his condition, and being able to go through his transformations with his friends was going he was going to miss. Peter…didn't really care. James was excited to leave and get married and live with Lily, having his fellow Marauders over to their house every waking moment. Sirius…did not want to leave. At all. His home life had gotten steadily worse as the years progressed, and now, he couldn't even escape to the Potters if things got too rough. Well, he could, but James wouldn't be there, so that would just be odd.

The Gryffindor girls were thinking along the same lines, too. Lily was like her fiancé – she couldn't wait to get married and make a home and family with him. Viola didn't want to go back to her home, where it was just her and her father, and Reagan would miss the escape Hogwarts brought her from her seven older brothers.

But, despite what they all felt about leaving the school they had belonged to for seven years, they were all nervous about entering the world. James and Lily had each other, which made things better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it. James knew that he would always be trying to protect his love from all the bad things in the world, and Lily would be scared that James would get hurt trying to protect her. Sirius knew that he was going to go against his family – something that was not without its consequences. Remus accepted the fact that he would never be accepted for what he was.

But more than that, they were nervous about what they were planning to do. They all planned to join the fight against the dark side. The Order. It would take some of them, they knew. And they all couldn't help but hope and pray that it wasn't them that was killed, and then immediately hated themselves for wishing death on their friends.

There was nothing they could do about it, though.

So, there's the second part. Sorry it took so long to get up…heh. What do you think of Viola and Reagan? Who should be the Maid of Honour? Did Dumbledore teach the students everything he could have? Are they ready? What's going to happen to our loveable characters? Read and review, and you might just find out!


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